A Savoy Sensibility Takes on South Beach

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CHRISTOPHER MASON

May 18, 1997

'I HEARD a bloodcurdling scream as hot water gushed up and scalded her behind,'' said John Pringle, recalling the poignant discomfort of the wife of the Governor of Jamaica when a newly installed toilet erupted on the opening night of Round Hill, the legendary Jamaican resort he founded in 1951.

''Six hundred swells had been invited by Noel Coward, and they'd flown in from all over the world,'' he added. ''Let's just say, it didn't seem terribly auspicious.''

Poised for the May 19 reopening of the Tides, the grandest in scale of the Art Deco hotels that line Ocean Drive in South Beach and for which he has overseen $9.6 million worth of renovations, Mr. Pringle seemed anxious to avoid landing in any hot water himself.

Sipping espresso at a neighboring sidewalk cafe recently as bronzed fauna swept by on Rollerblades, the elegant Mr. Pringle, 72, was an unlikely presence on Ocean Drive. More improbable still is his current predicament, that of attempting to create what has been ambitiously vaunted as the first luxury hotel in South Beach, where service is notoriously inattentive.

''It's become very fashionable to complain,'' Kent Karlock, a local real estate agent, said about service at the area's famous hotels. ''They draw from a labor pool that's extremely good looking but not necessarily well trained.''

The 92 staff members at the Tides have been rigorously trained by Mr. Pringle for four weeks in preparation for the opening.

''I can't tell you how maddening it is to me that we've been sitting here for 20 minutes and nothing's been cleared,'' he said in a tone resonant of the glory days of the British Empire. ''And that's another thing,'' he added, removing his sunglasses and setting them down emphatically. ''I can't stand tables that rock.''

Ensconced in rural Wiltshire, England, until 18 months ago, Mr. Pringle has been coaxed out of retirement by his younger cousin Chris Blackwell (the founder of Island Records, who bought the faded hotel in 1991) in the hopes that he will be able to bring some of his exacting standards and panache to the Tides.

Mr. Pringle is amply acquainted with the whims of the rich. Eager to savor combat on joining the British Army at 18, he instead found himself dispatched as an equerry to the Duke of Windsor when he was the Governor of the Bahamas.

But it was at Round Hill, where he served as innkeeper to international society from 1951 to 1961, that Mr. Pringle had the opportunity to observe human folly in full bloom.

''You wouldn't believe how childish these famous people could be,'' he said. ''Several of them ran business empires and in some cases countries, but they would squabble about their place on the beach or in the restaurant.''

Mr. Pringle's dream of starting Round Hill, a series of luxury cottages served by a central hotel, began when he found himself seated next to Coward on a flight to the Bahamas in 1950. ''I was loaded with ambition but no money,'' he said. ''And when I began showing him photographs of the land I wanted to build on, I couldn't help noticing he had his hand on my knee.''

Unperturbed, the enthusiastically heterosexual Mr. Pringle continued expanding on his business plan. ''After about 10 minutes, he said, 'My dear boy, if you'd just stop boring me I'll buy one of your damn cottages.' ''

Among those who converged on Round Hill during its heyday were the Hollywood deities Errol Flynn, Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert; the Dukes of Somerset, Sutherland and Marlborough, and Gloria Vanderbilt and Sidney Lumet, who chose it for their honeymoon.

After providing famously meticulous service to so many oversize egos, Mr. Pringle retired at the grand age of 37 to a house in Switzerland he describes as ''a cuckoo clock on the side of an Alp.''

I DLENESS clearly did not suit him, however, for Mr. Pringle has since flourished in a miscellany of careers that have included serving as director of tourism in his native Jamaica and as European chairman of the advertising agency Doyle Dane Bernbach, before going on to become a co-founder of Consolidated Productions, which landed an Emmy Award for the television series ''Upstairs, Downstairs.'' For the last 30 years, he has been an Ambassador at Large for Jamaica.

Mr. Pringle clearly revels in pomp. Callers to his hotel office hear the portentous clarion greeting: ''Ambassador Pringle's office.''

Past triumphs notwithstanding, can the suave Mr. Pringle instill a Savoy sensibility on Muscle Beach?

Glancing at the ocean from the vast 1,800-square-foot penthouse at the Tides as he led a tour of the hotel, Mr. Pringle seemed momentarily unconvinced.

''I just hope to God that all my grand ideas are going to work,'' he said.

Mr. Pringle and Mr. Blackwell have taken the bold step of enlarging the guest rooms by gutting the 1936 structure, reducing the number of rooms from 112 to 45 (rates range from $150 to $1,100 a night). The English architect Stuart Mosscrop and his son, Ilija Mosscrop, have rearranged the hallways to give every room an ocean view.

For those desiring a closer look at the mesmerizing variety of human forms strutting and preening on the beach, Mr. Pringle has mounted telescopes at the windows.

The penthouse suite also has its own galley kitchen, which Mr. Pringle said was for storing ice and champagne, and two spacious bathrooms.

Why two? ''Some of the greatest romances have ended because people have had to share a bathroom,'' Mr. Pringle said knowingly.

Above the sink in each bathroom, a double set of vanity mirrors can be adjusted so that guests can inspect themselves from every angle. Tactfully, the mirrors are lit from the side. ''If you look lousy in the bathroom mirror, you'll never go down to dinner,'' Mr. Pringle said.

By the door of each room hangs a blackboard with chalk. ''It's there so that if you wake up and discover that the person lying next to you is still asleep, you can write them a message,'' he said. ''For instance, you could tell them they were marvelous last night, and that you'll await them by the pool. Or, alternatively, you could suggest they clear out by the time you return.''

If the slumberer is a stranger, fear not. The closet is equipped with a safe. ''But it's at eye level, not shin,'' Mr. Pringle said. ''I disapprove of hotels where you have to grovel on the floor to stash your valuables.''

Chocolates on the pillow is one luxury not proffered. ''Nothing is more vulgar,'' Mr. Pringle said firmly.

Seeing a tissue in a waste basket, Mr. Pringle grimaced. ''I believe a room should be inspected thoroughly every day,'' he said. ''At Round Hill, I insisted that maids remove toothpaste and cold cream caps and clean them. Not even the Connaught or the Savoy in London does that.''

He also believes in keeping careful dossiers on guests. ''It's important to remember things like whether they like a squeeze of lemon in their martini or one of those dreadful little onions,'' he said. ''But the most important thing in a hotel is flattery. I don't believe that any of us is so sophisticated that we don't love being pampered.''

Mr. Pringle will be doing some of the pampering himself, but only for the next three months. After that, he intends to return to his farm in the wilds of Wiltshire, where most passersby are neither encumbered by cellular phones and Rollerblades, nor obsessed with their physiques. ''They're goats, mostly,'' he said.

This article appears in print on May 18, 1997, Section 1, Page 35 of the National edition.

https://www.nytimes.com/1997/05/18/style/a-savoy-sensibility-takes-on-south-beach.html